Judging Other People’s Needs

I was rather surprised to see some of the more critical comments that were coming in on Tim Ferriss’ fourhourworkweek.com blog under his post announcing The 4-Hour Chef Giveback Campaign contest supporting DonorsChoose.org.

Getting right to the heart of the matter, paraphrasing the criticism, I would ask the following:

• Now how is it that someone would suggest that: “Sifting through DC (DonorsChoose) projects” is not “a great use of laypeople’s time”?
• Similarly, since when is “making donations” not “a productive use of (a reader’s) limited funds?”

Adding to those questions, and based on what I’ve been learning about the DC projects, I would also ask this:

• Who is to say whether or not a $94,000 project to build a playground is more “genius” or “imaginative” or more likely to “affect graduation rates, test scores, incarceration rates, life satisfaction scores, employment rates, income rates, etc.” than a $200 project asking for a few bottles of cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer or tissues and sanitizing wipes?

Before going further, I suppose it would only be fair for me to also ask this:

• Who am I to judge someone that I do not know who is questioning something that neither of us likely has deep intimate knowledge about anyway?

Thus, I proceed by simply considering the loosely referenced comments at face value and going from there.

The Business of It

From a business perspective, many of us are trained to look at a transaction purely based on the data that supports it. Supply and demand. Profit and Loss. Big or Small. Goal met or missed. On time or late.

Yet, numbers are notorious for removing the human element of the equation. While marketing does account for some of the psychological aspects of persuasion, influence and other emotional factors that affect outcomes, still, for that, too, we rely on metrics to determine next steps. Isn’t that what the emerging field of Data Science is largely going to be about?

While non-profit organizations are driven by many of the same financial practices that businesses are, I’m not so sure that education and learning should be measured in the same matter-of-fact way.

The Intangibles

Cut-and-dry. Success or failure. Increases or decreases. Rates or Absolutes. “The numbers are the numbers.” Those are the commonly used benchmarks for evaluating impact.

However, what facts and figures do we have that are good at monitoring the energy, fuel and momentum required to achieve positive outcomes?

Who is measuring: enthusiasm, satisfaction, commitment, fortitude, fulfillment, encouragement, support, confidence, effort, motivation and the often-elusive happiness?

These less measurable mental and emotional intangibles around attitude often are what make the difference between winning or losing.

I see crowdfunding projects, like those at DonorsChoose.org, as being the motivational fuel that drives the teachers and their students on to their unknowable-at-the-moment final destinations.

Personally, I prefer to trust rather than to question whether or not teachers who submit their projects at DonorsChoose.org are doing the best they know how. How about you?